Elimination of Traces of Nazi Crimes: “Sonderaction-1005”
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Abstract
Currently, there is still a need to highlight little-known pages of the Second World War, the Nazi occupation of the territory of the USSR. One of these pages is the issue of disposing of the bodies of murdered Soviet citizens (civilians, prisoners of War), buried in large mass graves scattered throughout the territory of the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. During the Nazi occupation, the ideological enemies of the Reich, primarily Jews, communists, commissars and other «politically dangerous elements» (undergrounds, partisans, saboteurs), were mass exterminated by four German Einsatzgruppen RSHA, additional mobile operational formations of the SS and SD, police formations (regiments, battalions), stationary units of the security police and SD, other units. All penal structures were directly subordinated to the RSHA and directly to the SS Reichsführer, because they carried out the orders of Himmler, Heydrich and Müller. The article emphasizes that “Sonderaktion-1005”, organized in the RSHA, had a secret status and the same method of disposing of corpses in all occupied regions. Therefore, what happened in Ukraine is not an exception, but fit into the general rules developed for eastern lands. “Sonderaktion” on the territory of the USSR began in the summer of 1943 (on the eve of the retreat of the Germans) and lasted until the fall of 1944 (the moment of the liberation of the territory by the Red Army). The method of disposal of corpses in the eastern occupied territories completely duplicated the methods used in the “death camps” of the “Reingard” action (Polish General Governorate), as well as in Chelmno and Birkenau (Auschwitz-II) (annexed territory of Poland). The article analyzes: centers of mass killings and burial of corpses in the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine; involvement of prisoners of SD prisons, ghetto camps, correctional labor camps, and camps for Soviet prisoners of War as the main executors of disposal works in the “Sonderaction”; security and control functions of German personnel. Recollections of witnesses of events from different parts of the occupation zones of Belarus and Ukraine are involved. Little-known aspects of the occupation reality were partially elaborated in the works of foreign and individual Ukrainian scientists, but they require a more thorough study and rethinking.
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